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Mid-Week Message - January 15

revkatetworivers

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you!


In this season of Annual Reports, I've been thinking a lot about stewardship this month, and what stewardship (in all of its different forms) might mean.


In "olden times," a steward was in charge of his (and yes, they were usually "he"s) boss's belongings on the boss's behalf.  A landowner might be travelling for several months, so would leave the steward in charge of managing the land and how it should be farmed most effectively, supervising the people farming the land, managing the landowner's bank accounts, and making decisions and acting if unforeseen disaster strikes.


When the landowner returns, the steward's work would be reviewed, and as long as the steward was acting in the same way that the landowner would have acted, then all was good.


We often talk about stewardship around the church, and this is the model of being stewards that we are referring to; only instead of the landowner, it is God who has entrusted us with all these things.  God is the Creator of all - of everything that we can see, and of everything we cannot see, from the largest galaxy to the smallest sub-atomic particle.  We, as humans, are part of God's creation. And yet, for some reason, God has entrusted us to be stewards of creation - entrusted us to act on God's behalf.


We have been entrusted with so many things.  Personally, I think that the gift of time is maybe the most precious gift we have been given.  Each of us has also been given different skills or talents.  We are gifted with material resources as well. And we are also called to be stewards of the things that we wouldn't consider "ownership" over - things like rivers and trees and hills.


As stewards, we should always be asking ourselves the question:  How can we care for and use these things on God's behalf?  How would God want us to be using the things that God has entrusted to us?  How we use the gift of time, how we use the gift of our talents, how we use the gift of material resources - all of this matters.


Each of our churches has a Board of Stewards to help us, as the whole church, consider these questions too. As churches, we are stewards over many things - we have three buildings, all of which sit on land.  We are entrusted with money to use towards God's work.  We, as a whole church, are also blessed with many skills and talents.  Our church Stewards help us and guide us as, together, we use these resources in ways that honour God, in ways that live out God's love, and in ways that care for God's creation.


This week, I want to lift up and thank our Stewards at all three of our churches for the good work that they are doing!


(And if you would like to use your own skills and talents in ways that support the work of the church, as well as the gift of time, now is the time to be talking to our Nominating committee!  We have vacancies in different committees and groups that they are trying to fill ahead of our annual meetings next month.  Bette at Summerville, Kathy F. at Long Reach, and Elaine and Ticket at Westfield.)


Moving on to announcements this week:

  • Worship on Sunday will be at Long Reach at 9:15 and Westfield and on Facebook Live at 11:15. This week, we are reading the story of the Wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11) - the story where Jesus turns water into wine. This is a beautiful story, all about celebrating joy and abundance. What would we ask Jesus for, if we trusted that the response would be abundance?

  • Annual Reports - if you are responsible for contributing anything to the Annual Report, a reminder to please get it to Elaine by Sunday!

  • Asking the Big Questions - Tuesday January 21, 4:30-6:00, including pizza. This month's question will be:  Why do bad things happen to good people?"

  • Reader and Greeter Lists - Elaine has printed off the January-June schedule, and it will be available on Sunday morning. If you are regularly a reader or greeter at your church, please pick up a copy, and mark your dates on your calendar. If you aren't able to do the date assigned to you, please find someone to swap with; and then let Elaine know, so she can make sure that the bulletins have the correct names each week.

  • New Member / Confirmation Classes - As I mentioned last week, we are going to be holding New Member / Confirmation classes this winter, beginning in February. If you (or your teenager) are interested in exploring your faith and considering becoming a full member of the United Church, you are very welcome to join us! (And if you are already a member and/or were confirmed when you were younger, but would like an opportunity to explore your faith from your current perspective, you are also welcome to take part!) Please let me know if you (or your teenager, or both of you) are interested, as I'm going to be trying to schedule these classes at a time that works for everyone.

  • Stop! In the Name of Love - as announced on Sunday morning at Westfield, the Westfield United Church Choir is going to be presenting a Valentine's concert on Thursday February 13 at 7pm, admission by freewill offering. The music will explore the theme of love, in all of love's different forms. Mark your calendar, and please share the poster from the Two Rivers Pastoral Charge Facebook page to help us get the word out, or you can download a copy of the poster by clicking here.

  • Bulletin Covers - back in the fall, I shared that Elaine is hoping to start using our own artwork to create bulletin covers. (There will be a slight cost savings by printing our own, but also there have been times when she has tried to order covers and they haven't been available.) So this is a call-out to our artist and photographers - if you have any art (in any medium) that would make a good bulletin cover (either for a generic week, or for special occasions like Christmas or Easter), please send it to Elaine at wuc@nb.sympatico.ca - the only specification is that they should be rectangular (or able to be cropped into a rectangle), and portrait orientation rather than landscape. I can't wait to start seeing our in-house bulletin covers!

And that is it for announcements this week!


For a closing thought, I want to share a short video from Moderator Carmen Lansdowne about the 100th anniversary of the United Church of Canada, coming up this June. You can watch it by clicking here.  I'm also going to include a plug for a couple of anniversary events coming up locally:  On Sunday March 2, the Westfield UCW members are going to be leading worship at both Long Reach and Westfield, with a service that celebrates the contribution of women to the United Church of Canada over the past 100 years. And then on Sunday June 15, there is going to be a big worship service in the auditorium of Saint John High School, with all of the United Churches in southwestern New Brunswick gathering together to celebrate the anniversary. More details about this will be available closer to the time, but you can mark it on your calendar now as you won't want to miss it!


Blessings to you and yours, today and always!

Kate.


Rev. Kate Jones

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

(506) 757-2201 (office)

(506) 343-1307 (mobile)



Pronouns:  she/her/hers


"Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?"

Jesus replied, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: "You must love your neighbour as you love yourself."

(Matthew 22:36-39)

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